Every tenth ruble budget will be “other” articles

The box with the documents of the draft law “On the Federal budget for 2017 and the planning period of 2018 and 2019”

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Budget expenditures by an opaque “other issues” in 2017 will increase to 10%. In part, this can be considered an informal classification of costs, experts say

The expenditures of the Federal budget, classified by the government under articles “other issues” in 2017 will increase to 1.62 trillion, or almost 10% of total expenditures, should be analyzed RBC materials to the project budget. In other words, every tenth rouble falls into opaque “cell” which the authorities are unable (or unwilling) to relate to the more specific and concrete directions. This is more than in 2016, the results of which “other issues” will amount to 1.46 trillion rubles, or 8.9%.

In some cases, the “other issues” is the common expenses for which there was the “” sub-section: for example, expenditure in the field of tourism, which fall into the “Other matters of the national economy.” In others, the cost of the state apparatus, formulated sufficiently abstractly (“the costs of providing the functions of public authorities”). But a significant proportion of these “other” costs settled in the power sections (“national defense” “national security”) and can be considered quasisecurity — just without the formal secrecy.

The expenditures related to “other questions” part can be considered as classified, said the head of “Fiscal policy” the Economic expert group Alexander Suslin. “Other” expenses can be associated with the defense “one of the most controversial areas of government spending,” she says. Covering these costs, the government “removed the opportunity to discuss how these issues are necessary,” the expert continues. The translation of certain expenses in the category of “other issues,” she calls a “political decision” that is taken at a level higher than the Ministry of Finance. In this case, not that of the Ministry of Finance that something is wrong with the classification of expenditures, I’m sure Suslin. “The classification is very detailed, just usually not all of it is published — only a couple of levels, although they are much more. The Finance Ministry, of course, all of this is, he knows how much money went”, — said the expert.

RBC analyzed the structure of budgetary expenditures for 12 sections of functional classification (“General government”, “national defense, national security and law enforcement”, “national economy”, “Social policy” etc.). Each has a subsection “other questions”. Traditionally, most of these expenditures in absolute terms have in the direction of “national defense”, “national economy” and “National issues”. In the part of “National issues” spending on “other issues” is almost 25%, in the “National economy” — about 17%, “National defence” — 13% (according to 2016, according to the October budget amendments).

In 2017, the leaders of the filling of the article “other issues” again goes the “national economy” — nearly 700 billion rubles (30% of the provision in section). So already in 2014-2015 (in this case in 2014 in the “other issues” of national economy were more than 1.5 trillion rubles). Under subsection “Other issues in the field of national economy” impact including issues related to the nuclear weapons complex, the costs associated with the implementation of international treaties of Russia on the use of highly enriched uranium extracted from nuclear weapons, the costs associated with ensuring nuclear, radiation and environmental safety and follows from the rules of the Ministry of Finance on the allocation of costs for sections and subsections. Part of the money allocated to “other issues” of national economy, in 2017 can be redistributed by the decisions of the President and the government on liquidation of consequences of activity of objects on storage and destruction of chemical weapons the bill on the Federal budget, tabled on 28 October in the state Duma.

It is not surprising that almost 20% of the cost of “other questions” section “national economy” officially classified.

For the first time appropriations for “Other national issues” than the same article in the section “national defense”: 290 billion RUB compared to 274 billion rubles in 2017. From the draft budget implies that it is in the “Other General state matters” reserved 96 billion roubles on the “material motivation” officials and 18.3 billion rubles on the individual decisions of the President and the government (for example, decisions on granting military and civilian personnel for participation in peacekeeping missions).

In addition, starting in 2016, sharply increased spending on “other issues” in “national security and law enforcement activities.” If in 2015, according to this article took only 11 billion rubles, in 2016 — already 109 billion, and for 2017 it is planned nearly 150 billion rubles In this sense, “national security” is coming soon according to the degree of closeness to the “National defense”, where in 2016 the “other matters” were related costs in the amount of 500 billion rubles. last year the experts of the Ranepa and the Gaidar Institute in its opinion on the draft budget 2016, noted the “significant reallocation of costs under “Armed forces” in favor of the subsection “Other questions in the field of national defence”, which does not explained and the government “seems counterproductive.”

“Other issues” in the power sections are correlated with the formal classification: in the section “national defense” by 2017, more than half of spending on “other matters” classified as “National security” — more than 97%. It turns out that these allocations would be classified as double.

If we consider the costs included in the budget for “other issues” as conventionally opaque and add to them formally classified appropriations, the proportion of non-transparent expenditure in the budget in 2017 will exceed 24%. However, from this point of view, the budget becomes more open in 2014, 2015 and 2016, this share reached 27-28%. A sharp increase occurred after 2013, when the conflict began in Ukraine and Russia’s relations with the West deteriorated.

Every tenth ruble, aimed at the “other issues” to the usual “structural opacity”, said head of the laboratory of military Economics of the Institute for economic policy Gaidar Vasily Zatsepin. “This is the Soviet trauma. Since Soviet times we have completely incomprehensible and non-transparent budget. The Supreme Council to approve it, but what the money is spent, known only to specific officials in the Ministry of Finance,” he says.